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News and holiday announcements

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As we begin to say goodbye to everyone at the end of Term, we have a few bits and pieces of news.

Firstly, a reminder that we close for Christmas on the 20th December, re-opening on 2nd January. We will be open tomorrow, Saturday 7th December, from 11-5pm and will open until 7pm next week (9th-13th December), but go back to our vacation opening hours of 9am-5pm, Monday-Friday from Monday 16th December until the start of next Term.

Secondly, vacation loans are now in effect, with books due back on the 21st January (Tuesday of 1st week). We are aware that some readers’ cards expire at the end of the year; if you are a card holder whose card expires during the Christmas closure, please let us know and we will extend your loan and waive any fines incurred once you have renewed your card.

Thirdly, a bit of good news: the Humanities Research Fair, which was cancelled due to strike action in November, is now rescheduled for 27th January. Details can be found here and the booking link is here.

We trust that everyone has had a productive term! There have certainly been some changes here. Three weeks ago we welcomed a new member of staff, Ruchi Srivastava, who is with us in the afternoons and at the Sackler in the mornings. The extra pair of hands has provided a much needed boost to our ability to shelve books promptly and avoid the shelving trolleys getting out of hand.

Readers may have noticed piles of blue crates in amongst the empty shelves round by the staff office – this is part of an ongoing project to move some of our older and more vulnerable collections to the Book Storage Facility, where they will be kept in cooler and more book-friendly conditions. Some of these materials have also been boxed in specially made acid-free boxes to ensure that they stay in the best condition possible. Books which have been moved to the BSF will still be orderable back to OIL, but if they date from before 1920 they will not be borrowable. All items in the collection which are more than 100 years old are confined to the library.

The reclassification has continued during the term, and will be accelerated by more staff-time after Christmas (more news on that in our next post). There may be a minor book-move after the holidays to accommodate the PJ-section, which is becoming slightly clogged again, but Kate says she will decide on that nearer the time.

Finally, we’d like to wish all our readers a Merry Christmas (for those that do) and a Happy New Year (for everyone), and we will see you in 2020!

 

 

 

 

August and September Library Hours

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August Bank Holiday Closure

Hello! We hope everyone is enjoying the relaxed atmosphere in the library over the summer.

Just a reminder that, as usual, we will be closed on the August Bank Holiday Monday — 26th August.

 

St Giles’ Fair

We will also be closed for the two days of St Giles’ Fair – the 9th and 10th of September.

For those readers who wonder why we do this, it is partly because of security concerns due to the large numbers of people who converge on this end of the city during the fair, and also because the noise from the rides is quite loud and intrusive. Your humble blogger was in the library while it was closed one afternoon a few years ago and the screams from one of the closer rides were quite alarming!

Otherwise, we will remain open 9am-5pm on Monday-Friday until the start of Michaelmas Term, when our usual term-time opening hours will be 9am-7pm on weekdays and 11am-5pm on Saturdays.

 

Book moves

As some of you will have noticed, there has been a bit of moving going on in the far end of the LC sequence; Kate is currently wading through the PL section.

Our most asked-for resource in that area, the New Catalogus Catalogorum (Z6605.S3 U54 NEW 1949 Ref.) has now moved to the opposite side of the aisle. We hope to get the rest of the move done before the start of Term, and apologise for the occasional loud noises caused by books falling over and shelves being moved around.

Summer Building Works Postponement

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Following the postponement of building works until next summer (2020), the Oriental Institute will now be open during the summer vacation. Our Opening hours during July will be Monday-Friday 9.00-17.00.

Our opening hours during Aug and Sept will be confirmed in due course.

The vacation loan limit, which has been raised to 20 books, will remain in place, and further information that affects library users will be shared when it becomes available.

November news and Vacation reminders

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November news

We’re sorry that this blog post has been somewhat delayed this month; this was mostly due to there not really being a great deal of news, but illness was also a factor as there has been a nasty cold going round. We hope not too many of our readers have been affected!

One thing we had been meaning to mention, out of general interest to our readership, was the exhibition about T.E. Lawrence which has been on since October; please see the website for more information: http://www.magd.ox.ac.uk/libraries-and-archives/news/new-exhibition-lawrence-of-oxford/.

We are very pleased to report that, thanks to the sterling efforts of our extra members of staff this term, we have managed to clear the shelving backlog in the Korean Studies Library section in the basement. Thanks in particular to Ben, who has done a great job of sorting this out. Hopefully, now that the shelves are better arranged, we will not find ourselves with the same space problems in the future!

 

Vacation reminders

The Oriental Institute Library will be open until 7pm next week (3rd-7th December) and 11-5pm on Saturday 8th; after which we will revert to our vacation hours of 9-5pm (closed Saturdays) until the 6th of January.

Vacation Loans are now in effect; all books checked out or renewed will be due back on the 15th January (Tuesday of 1st week).

The Oriental Institute building closes for Christmas at 5pm on Thursday 20th December, so we will be closed on the Friday 21st, unlike most of the other Bodleian Libraries. We will re-open on Thursday 3rd January at 9am.

We are aware that some readers have cards which expire on the 31st December and who will therefore not be able to borrow or renew their books beyond that date. We are happy to waive fines for readers in this position once they have renewed their cards as it is not their fault that their card expires during the closed period. Do let us know if you need any help with this.

Finally, we would like to wish our readers a good holiday, and a happy Christmas to those who celebrate it!

 

News and Summer Announcements

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Summer Closure

We would like to give readers advance warning that the Library will be closing during the Long Vacation, due to the ongoing heating works which have been carried out around the building. The work will significantly affect the library spaces, and it will not be safe for readers or staff to access the library during the day. The current dates for the closure are 14th July to 12 August. Please look out for notices in case this changes – we will do our best to keep information up to date.

The protocol agreed with the contractors should allow staff to access the library for an hour at the end of each day to fetch books requested by readers, which will then be made available at the Sackler Library.

We will make sure that everyone is kept informed and will be posting updates here on the blog, on Facebook and Twitter and on signs around the library, so do please keep an eye out for those. If you know anyone from outside Oxford who might be planning a visit to use the library over the summer please share this information with them – we do not want to disappoint anyone unnecessarily!

We appreciate that this is inconvenient for everyone involved, but are optimistic that the improvements to the heating system will mean that everyone in the building can be more comfortable in the long term.

Open Access Week

The University is holding its own Open Access Week in 8th Week, with a series of events of interest to researchers about issues and developments in open access publishing and research dissemination. The full programme and details for booking can be found here: http://openaccess.ox.ac.uk.

Doors

The ongoing issue with SALTO (the door-entry system) appears to be slowly resolving itself. The problem has involved the doors at OIL not connecting to the server and updating the cards which are used here; readers who are also using other libraries where their cards are updated – including the Sackler and the central Bodleian/Weston Library – are not experiencing the same problems. A new Web client for Salto is being installed at the end of June, which should solve any of the remaining problems.

Opening hours over the Summer

Summer Vacation opening hours for the library have been confirmed; we will remain open on Saturdays and until 7pm until Friday 29th June. Thereafter we will be open 9am to 5pm on Monday-Friday from July 2nd until Friday 28th September, apart from the aforementioned 4-week closure.

We will be closed on the August Bank Holiday Monday (27th August) and on 3rd and 4th September for St Giles Fair.

We will start the longer loan period for Vacation Loans in 9th week. We are considering whether to increase the number of books readers are permitted to borrow over the vacation in order to ease the problems which may be caused by the closure, and will let everyone know when a decision is made.

 

February News and Reminders for March

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Winter returns…

This post is a little late, owing to the slightly chaotic scenes last week when we were a bit short staffed due to the extreme weather conditions. We would like to thank everyone for your patience with the delays to the deliveries which resulted from the snow, and also apologise for the tropical conditions in the library. The old heating system got rather enthusiastic when the temperatures outside dropped, and we know that some people found the resulting heat a little too much, particularly as everyone was dressed for the Siberian conditions outside. Fortunately, the observant will have noticed the additions around the building of new radiators which will be plumbed in during the Summer vacation and will enable us to control the temperatures around the library and hopefully keep readers (and books) in slightly more favourable conditions.

Vacation notes

With this being the final week of Term, please note that we will revert to vacation opening hours from 19th March until 14th April: we will be CLOSED on Saturdays and will be open 9am – 5pm Monday-Friday.

We will also be closed for Easter from Thursday 29th March until Monday 2nd April inclusive, reopening at 9am on Tuesday 3rd.

Vacation Loans are now in effect; any books checked out or renewed will be due back on April 24th.

 

Book Moves and shelving

As we mentioned in February’s post, we are currently at something of an impasse in the basement with regard to new Korean Studies Library books, for which we need to rearrange the shelves. We have not managed to organise this due to staffing pressures, but hope to reach a solution soon. In the meantime readers are welcome to browse the reshelving trolleys on the ground floor if there are any basement books which they cannot find on the shelves downstairs.

Kate has also reached a point with the PJ reclassification where she is unable to fit anything else on the shelves and has been stashing unreclassifiable books on shelves near the older PJ sequence with a view to doing a book move after the end of Term. She will be adjusting the amount of growth space in the G-P sections in the hope of making up a bit of room to space out the PJ section where it is particularly full and also to fit in the books which have not been reclassified. She tells us that the problem lay in the large number of dictionaries, which took up a lot of shelf space and left her without much flexibility for additional books in the same area. She will begin moving things next week, and apologises in advance for any falling book noises or bad language.

Incidentally, all the Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic editions are now on the shelf by the front office as far as we know, but if anyone sees any with the old label please feel free to pass them on to Kate to be reclassified!

November News and Holiday Reminders

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Holiday Opening Times and Deliveries

Over the Christmas Vacation, we will be opening from 9-7 until the week beginning 11th December, when we will start to close at 5pm.

We will be closed for Christmas from 5pm on Thursday 21st December until 1st January inclusive.

After Xmas we will be opening until 5pm for the first week back, from Tuesday 2nd January and then reverting to our Term time opening of 9am to 7pm from Monday 8th January.

The last book delivery from the Book Storage Facility before Christmas will be on the morning of Thursday 21st December; any books ordered after 7pm on Wednesday 20th will be fetched on Tuesday 2nd January, either in the morning or afternoon runs, depending on the backlog of orders which has built up over the vacation.

 

Care of Library Materials

Readers are politely requested to please take the best care possible of books borrowed from the Oriental Institute, as any damage caused may result in the removal of the book from circulation, and therefore its loss to everyone who might have wished to use it.

Some of our materials are quite old and quite fragile, or have been misused in the past and suffered damage, and we rely on our readers to make sure they do not become any more damaged than they already are.

A short while ago a book was returned to us which was soaked with coffee – fortunately only on the covers and the edges of a few pages – which, had it been worse, might have been removed from circulation altogether. We were able to rescue it, but we would really rather not have to deal with situations like that in the first place.

No action was taken against that particular reader, but we do reserve the right to charge for the replacement of damaged library items if they cannot be salvaged.

 

Food and Drink in the Library

With this in mind may we also remind everyone that *only* water is allowed in the library. A bottle of Oasis juice was found by the Photocopiers earlier this week and several staff have observed coffee cups in the wastepaper baskets. Sugary drinks may attract pests, which might then damage the books, and may also cause mould outbreaks which can be a health hazard.

There is a common room downstairs, and most library materials – apart from the BSF books which cannot leave the library – can be borrowed, so we would much prefer people take their refreshments outside the library. A break from your desk is supposed to be beneficial, after all!

 

Shiny new pipes!

Observant* readers may have noticed a new set of shiny copper pipes, which have appeared on the wall around the Photocopiers and along the edge of the Periodicals section, as well as in the Back Office.

These have been installed in advance of the new heating system which is due to be fitted next summer. Fortunately all the work took place outside normal opening hours so we have not been disrupted by noise.

*They had been there for several days before your humble blogger noticed them, but I do tend not so spend too long looking at the ceiling…

Finally…

We would like to wish all our readers a good break, a Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it and a Happy New Year to all. We will be back in January with our usual review of 2017 and (hopefully) fewer complaints about food in the library!

 

Summer Announcements

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We apologise for the late blog post; this has been largely due to waiting on confirmation about several matters which will affect the Library over the Long Vacation. Having finally had some information, please note the following:

Opening Hours

There will be changes to the Library’s opening hours in the vacation:

From Monday 3rd July to Saturday 30th September, the new hours will be Monday to Friday: 09:00-17:00 and closed on Saturdays.

A system of transfer of material from OIL to the Sackler Library from 16:00 on Fridays from 7 July will be trialled (and adjusted if the quantity proves to be unmanageable).  This will cater for non-lending material and for readers without borrowing privileges.  It is expected that material transferred in this way will be returned to OIL by 10:00 on the following Monday but staff may consider requests from readers to keep the material on reserve in Sackler for their convenience.

The library will be closed as usual on August Bank Holiday Monday (28th August) and the two days of St. Giles’ Fair (4th-5th September).

 

Building Works and Library Closure

During the summer vacation, the Oriental Institute Library will need to close temporarily to allow for work to install a new central heating system in the Oriental Institute building. The closure dates will be communicated as soon as the library receives a detailed schedule of work from the Faculty. Should the closure be prolonged, we will make arrangements for books to be fetched from the Oriental Institute for use in the Sackler, subject to it being safe for staff to enter the building.

The graduate student vacation loan limit has been raised to 20 books and we strongly advise people to borrow their books at the beginning of the vacation.

We would ask readers who are planning to work in the library over the summer vacation to watch for further communications and/or to get in touch with library staff to let us know as soon as possible when you are planning to work in the library and which Open Shelf books you are intending to use.

If you know of any colleagues from outside of Oxford who are planning to use the Oriental Institute Library over the summer, we would be grateful if you could share this advance warning with them.

We will post further updates to this as and when we get them, both on the website and on the Social Media platforms.

Book Moves

When other factors allow, Kate will be undertaking another move of books around the LC section over the summer. Having cut down her hours to two afternoons a week for unrelated operational reasons, she reckons that this will take slightly longer than previous moves, but will endeavour to get it done with the minimum of noise and disruption. As part of this, the last of the periodicals currently not shelved over by the photocopiers (the Z. Per. Section) will be moved across the library and the LC sequence will continue from under the windows by the reader computers to the central section from where Kate has been moving the PJs. We will ensure that the shelf labels are kept up to date so that readers can find everything.

 

 

February News and March Reminders

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Another quiet but busy month in the Oriental Institute Library; we have been pleased to see how popular our Facebook link to the new blog post about the Digby collection has been – for those who missed it you can find it here: http://wp.me/p5Eblf-ZQ.

E-Resources Trial

Of interest this month has been the exciting trial of new e-resources, mentioned in our previous post and now with its own display just inside the Library door.

We hope our readers are taking advantage of these resources which are all available via OxLip+ until the end of March EXCEPT for the Early Arabic Printed Books resource, which is available until the 10th. Don’t miss the chance to try them out!

 

Wifi

While the Bodleian Libraries wifi issues appear to have been resolved for now, we have been asked to inform readers that the infrastructure is being migrated to a new platform on the 7th March (Tuesday of 8th Week) and that the service will be unavailable for a short time while the migration takes place. Eduroam and OWL will still be available to readers during the outage.

 

Vacation Loans

Long loans for the Easter vacation will commence on Tuesday 7th March and from then on all books checked out or renewed will be out until April 25th (Tuesday of 1st Week). If you have books which you want to keep for the vacation do remember to check that you can renew them – remember only three renewals are permitted before the books must be returned to the Library, so don’t get caught out! If in doubt, a member of staff can help.

The Library will be closed over the Easter long weekend from Thursday 13th to Monday 17th April inclusive, but we will otherwise be operating our usual hours over the Vacation. A reminder of this closure will be posted nearer the time.

 

Moving books

Once we are out of Term we are planning another of our small book-moves, this time in the Reference Section at the far end of the ground floor. This will involve moving the “Z.” shelfmarked books which came here from the New Bodleian into the space vacated by the Japanese Reference books, and is necessary in order to increase the space for the Folios which are currently just on the last two bays along the back wall. Kate is imminently going to be reclassifying the PJ Folios and is concerned that there is not enough room in the current Folio section to accommodate them and the PK Folios (which she will reach within the next few months if she carries on at her current speed).

November News, December Reminders

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Goodbye to Jonathan!

Today we said goodbye to Jonathan Acton, who has worked at the Oriental Institute Library since 2010, when he moved here after the closure of the New Bodleian.

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Jonathan first started working in the Bodleian Libraries in 2007, in the old Oriental Reading Room, and has spent the past nine years assisting readers of modern Oriental materials. When the reading rooms were re-organised in 2008 he worked in the New Bodleian Reading Room, as well as carrying out book-processing duties behind the scenes, and then moved to OIL along with Kate when the refurbishment started.

We wish him the best of luck in his future endeavours, and lots of fun playing with his grandson! We are sorry to see him go; his dedication to helping the readers has made him a valuable asset to the library, which will be a quieter (and probably less tidy) place without him!

November News

Drinks in the Library (again)

Despite repeated reminders, we are still finding evidence that readers are ignoring the rule that only water in sealed containers such as bottles may be brought into the library. We have found a number of cups containing coffee dregs over the past few weeks but have unfortunately yet to identify the culprit or culprits. Several readers with cups of water have also been spoken to.

We are not doing this to be awkward: the reason we don’t want coffee or other drinks in the library is purely for the protection of the books and equipment. We would politely request that readers respect this rule. We would rather not return to the days when readers were not permitted to take their bags into the library!

Reclassification

In happier news, November saw a milestone in the reclassification project: the end of the “D” section! D (History) has taken Kate since February 2014 to reclassify, with much of the collection moving into comparable sections in the Library of Congress sequence, although there were quite a few geography books which ended up in G!

The vast majority of former “D” shelfmarks – numbering almost 6000 books – are now in the LC sequence, which moves us a step closer to simplifying our shelving scheme and making it easier to find the books.

Since finishing “D”, Kate has also polished of “J” (Political Science) and “M” (Music) and is currently working on the end of “N” (Fine Art), before once again moving the books into the space created over the past few months.

This move is likely to start in the next week and will be finished before the start of Term in January.

Next on the reclassification project: “P”, but Kate says she’s not going to think about those just yet!

Periodicals

A number of periodicals which are currently shelved within the LC sequence are going to be moved into a space near the other periodicals (round the corner past the photocopiers) within the next few weeks. This is partly to free up space and also to rationalise the collection with a view eventually to having all periodicals on the ground floor in the same area. A prefix “Per.” will be added to these items to distinguish them from other materials with similar shelfmarks.

Vacation Loans

Vacation Loans are now in effect! Books borrowed from now on will be due back on January 17th (Tuesday of 1st week). Readers are requested to remember to renew books which were borrowed before this week to avoid a nasty new-year library fine surprise.

December Reminders

The library will be closed from 22nd December to January 3rd inclusive. This is a day earlier than the other Bodleian Libraries, which are open on the 22nd but closed on the 23rd onwards.

We have already noticed the dwindling numbers as many of our readers are leaving for the holidays and would like to wish everyone the best of the season!